Grimes Point Archaeological Area preserves evidence of human use stretching back more than 8,000 years in a landscape once shaped by ancient Lake Lahontan, lakes, and marshes that supported baskets, netting, food storage, hunting, and shelter in caves and rock shelters. Stillwater Marsh, northwest of Grimes Point, was later home to the Northern Paiute Toidikadi, or Cattail-eaters, who, like earlier inhabitants, relied on abundant marsh resources for much of their material life, building houses from cattail and tule bundles, making boats from bound tule stems tied with cattail leaves, and fashioning clothing, baskets, duck decoys, cradleboards, nets, and sandals from local plants. The area’s environment changed greatly over time: 10,000 years ago it was moister and milder, with slow streams, river otters, ground sloths, beavers, and bald eagles, but as the climate shifted, desert plants and animals adapted to heat and scarce water came to dominate. The site contains a large boulder field with hundreds of petroglyphs, some possibly 7,000 years old, and the broader area includes more than 1,000 pieces of ancient rock art, with images ranging from abstract stripes, dots, and zig-zags to human figures, goats, snakes, and horn toads; some carvings may be as old as 8,000 years, while others are less than 500 years old. Hidden Cave, a little over a mile northeast of Grimes Point, served as a storage place for food, tools, and other essentials, and together these remains, fossils, artifacts, rock shelters, and carvings make the area one of the most important archaeological sites in the Great Basin; it was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1971.